Wanted! Read Free

a car to drip oil, so the cement was clean. The Corvette was very long, so lengthwise there was plenty of room.
    He’d seen her clothing on the floor, but all teenagers threw their clothes on the floor all the time. It didn’t mean it had happened five minutes ago.
    She tugged at the skirt to make sure no flowery fabric showed. Would he come with flashlights—kneel down—tuck his neck around and look under the Corvette?
    Who knew what people who broke into houses to steal disks would do?
    She closed her fingers tightly around the fanny pack that held the nail polish and the two TWIN disks. What was on those disks?
    It must be very important to somebody.
    Certainly very important to her father.
    What did TWIN stand for? There were no twins in the family. Was it a company name? A client’s logo?
    Her father worked for an electronic recovery company. He spent his life retrieving lost data on computers. Usually these were accidentally deleted files or crashed systems. Every now and then it was intentional destruction by hackers. Rarely did he bring work home. Anything here in the condo was personal, and for Dad, that usually meant computer games. He loved games like Doom.
    The intruder’s shoes were heavy on the kitchen tile floor. The kitchen was so small he was across it in two strides and Alice knew, though she couldn’t see, that he must be standing in the door. For a moment she thought she would throw up, but she’d better not; she was lying on her back and she’d drown. Alice swallowed hard.
    The taste of vomit stayed in her mouth and throat, trying to get her to throw up, and the feet stayed on the step, trying to get her to reveal herself. She tightened her hands into fists to give herself courage. The fake nails dug into her palms like strangers.
    The man turned on the garage light.
    It was fluorescent and filled every corner.
    She pictured big fingers grabbing her, and dragging her out from under the car and tearing her skin on the cement and—
    —and what?
    She had heard only one voice, only one set of steps. And yet, the man must be speaking to somebody. Could there be two people? Was one motionless by the door? Was one tucking himself into a closet, hiding himself, so he could spring out at her?
    Alice tried to remember the voice. She would have to tell the police. But she was beyond memorizing anything; she was even beyond lying here, she was so scared. She wanted to leap up and run, but she was in a tomb: concrete and black pipe and gritty underside.
    She started to cry.
    I can’t make noise! she thought.
    She forced herself to cry silently. Itchy, annoying tears ran down the sides of her face and into her hair and ears. Her nose filled but she let that run, too, because she dared not sniffle.
    “I killed him good,” said the voice. It was thinned out like paint, distorted with tension.
    Him.
    Killed him.
    What him did that mean?
    Not Alice’s him. Not her father. Not that him.
    The man turned off the garage light and the darkness was wonderful: safe and friendly. She listened. He was doing something in the house: something heavy and quick. She could not imagine what it was. She had no imagination right now—or maybe way, way too much. Her mind blotted with emptiness and then surged with the vision of a body—a him!—then hurled itself into a vision of her father, her very own beloved father—the him—killed—covered with blood, or mangled, or—
    No, Alice said over and over, no.
    Why had the intruder stated I killed him good —while standing next to Alice’s hiding place? What kind of announcement was that?
    At the other end of the tiny condo, the computer keyboard tapped evenly for a minute or two. It was a placid, gentle sound. Then came the shutdown music of the computer, a single sweet note.
    And then the front door closed and an engine started up right next to the garage, and the minivan drove away. Alice could hear the shifting of gears, and she was surprised; hardly anybody had a